Anticonquista Café Brings ‘Cultivo-To-Cup’ Coffee To Pilsen
New Coffee Shop to Open March 2 at 952 W. 18th St.
Pilsen — A Chicago couple known for selling coffee grown on their Honduran and Guatemalan family farm is bringing a brick-and-mortar shop to Pilsen’s 18th Street corridor.
Anticonquista Café, a beloved coffee seller at Chicago farmers markets, is set to open March 2 at 952 W. 18th St. The café will be open 7 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, with plans to open daily in the late spring, said co-owners Elmer Fajardo Pacheco and Lauren Reese.
"I hope people will support Anticonquista Café not only for our coffee and the quality of our beans, but I’m really open to share my experience and what goes into growing coffee … so we can really change the coffee industry," Fajardo Pacheco said.
The March 2 grand opening will feature a raffle, a merchandise giveaway for the first 10 customers, and complimentary Guatemalan tamales. Doors open at 7 a.m., followed by a ribbon-cutting ceremony at noon.
The opening comes on the ninth anniversary of the death of Berta Cáceres, a Honduran environmental activist and Indigenous leader. The owners said they identify with and support her causes, including environmental preservation and resistance to colonization. Art pieces, including one honoring Cáceres, will be displayed at the event.
The new café will offer coffee cultivated at Fajardo Pacheco’s family farm, located on the border between Honduras and Guatemala, and a selection of food inspired by Central American fruits and vegetables also grown on the farm.
The menu includes sweet and savory options like Guatemalan quesadillas and champurradas and Salvadoran riguas, encouraging customers to think of coffee beyond a morning drink, Reese said.
"In Elmer’s family, everything goes with coffee," Reese said.
Customers can learn about small farmers who have sustained the coffee industry for generations through on-site English and Spanish workshops and roasting demonstrations.
"I grew up in a farm in Guatemala," Fajardo Pacheco said. "Seeing the coffee that I was growing since I was a kid and bringing it to this brick-and-mortar, I feel so excited."
The "Cultivo-to-Cup" Business Model
Fajardo Pacheco and Reese founded Anticonquista Café in 2019 under a "cultivo to cup" business model — Spanish for "cultivation to cup." They import Central American coffee grown on Fajardo Pacheco’s family farm and sell it directly to customers in Chicago.
"I started working with coffee when I was 7 years old," Fajardo Pacheco said. "I remember the pilas, a place where you pop the coffee and take the pulp out of the coffee cherry."
Since its founding, Anticonquista Café has aimed to end exploitative labor practices common in the coffee industry and provide a sustainable alternative where the farmers who grow coffee can sell it directly to customers for a fair price, Fajardo Pacheco said.
Coffee, one of the most volatile commodities, is the main source of income for about 25 million Latin American farmers, 90 percent of whom are small farmers, according to a 2024 United Nations report.
From Farmers Markets to Brick-and-Mortar
In December 2020, the couple started selling coffee from a coffee bike in the city’s winter farmers markets. They started with 1,000 pounds of unsorted coffee shipped from Fajardo Pacheco’s family farms to Chicago amid travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Reese said.
As Anticonquista has grown, customers have asked for a brick-and-mortar shop. Last summer, the couple found a vacant storefront in Pilsen and received a small business vacant storefront activation grant from the city that helped them open the shop.
Community Space
Fajardo Pacheco and Reese want the café to be a community space where people can gather and learn together, they said. A quetzal, the national bird of Guatemala, adorns the wall, and books sit on shelves around the shop.
Reese, a photographer and former bookseller, hopes to resurrect a book club she previously ran but stopped for lack of a permanent space in which to meet. The name of the club, Café conTextos, is a play on the Spanish word for "context" and roughly translates to "coffee and texts."
"This is a space that we hope a lot of people can feel comfortable in, like a safe haven," Reese said.
FAQs
Q: What is the "Cultivo-to-Cup" business model?
A: Anticonquista Café imports Central American coffee grown on Fajardo Pacheco’s family farm and sells it directly to customers in Chicago, aiming to end exploitative labor practices in the coffee industry.
Q: What is the cafe’s mission?
A: To provide a sustainable alternative where farmers who grow coffee can sell it directly to customers for a fair price, promoting environmental preservation and resistance to colonization.
Q: What kind of food and drinks can I expect at the cafe?
A: The cafe will offer coffee cultivated at Fajardo Pacheco’s family farm, as well as a selection of food inspired by Central American fruits and vegetables, including sweet and savory options like Guatemalan quesadillas and champurradas and Salvadoran riguas.
Q: Will the cafe host events and workshops?
A: Yes, the cafe will host workshops and events, including book clubs, language meetups, and roasting demonstrations.
